4.8 Coup D'etat Times Two
Timmeron gives himself over to the Citadel, drinking in its powers and engaging the four dread lords keeping Kaneel prisoner. The Citadel empowers his magic such that he no longer has need of silly little things like spell domains concentrating on his magic; what he wills occurs. As he and the dread lords lob spell after spell upon each other, the party tries to rescue Kaneel. Before they can reach him, however, one of the dread lords casually executes him. The Archbishop suggests that he can resurrect Kaneel if they have a moment, but that they should leave. They grab the body ad go, sealing the door behind them while Timmeron does battle with the four. They come upon a divide in the path and while they decide which to take the Archbishop takes a moment to bring Kaneel back to life. The party decides to take the more circuitous of the paths, reasoning that they may meet fewer obstacles as the more direct path might be expecting them. They almost immediately meet a blockade of cultists which they have to fight their way through. With trickery and telekinesis, raw force and holy fire they manage to fight their way through the blockade, pulverizing cultists and knocking aside their magical shields. The next room sets siege equipment against them, firing bolts of dark magic that explode, washing over the party with necromantic fervor. They dismantle the siege engines one by one; taking out their operators, crushing them, or forcing them to fire upon each other by redirecting their fire. Those not engaged in the offensive do their best to protect the more vulnerable party members, shielding them with magic, or even bodily diving in the way of the dark magic assault. Once the last siege engine fell, the party ran through the room. The next room, as far as they could tell, was filled to the brim with cultists and other horrors waiting to ambush them as soon as they opened the door. Something about the Citadel seemed to be consciously directing the cultists to block their path. Rather than engage against near impossible odds, they employed one of Baygrith's remaining bombs, annihilating the room and reducing it's occupants to powder with no small shuddering of walls and splintering of stone and bone. Timmeron, for his part, separated and took down two of the dread lords. He used time magic to lock two of the four in stasis, leading the remaining on a chase. Distracting one for a moment, he shrunk himself and entered the skull of the other, growing to full size to explode its skull into splinters The other he blasted with antimagic and cut in half with a massive sword of conjured energies. While losing his head hadn't actually destroyed the first lich, he was sufficiently surprised as to be rendered powerless to stop Timmeron's final blow. He took the opportunity to find the Chosen of Astor, taking command of the remaining cultists in the Citadel and directing them to leave the party alone. After meeting up with Timmeron, the party learns that the last two dread lords are waiting for them outside the Citadel. Not knowing what to expect, but knowing they have to leave sooner rather than later, the party heads to the exit, finding the two Dread Lords just outside. They conjure a magical barrier to prevent the party from fleeing, then prepare to face off against Timmeron. The rest of the party is sufficiently unintimidating to them that they barely recognize their existence. This changes when Perlapae divides the battlefield in half with a huge, stone wall, cutting the dread lords off from each other's power and weakening their defenses. Left with nothing else to focus on, one lich turns to the party, the other to Timmeron. Timmeron isn't entirely alone on his half of the field, however. Joining him in his head are the voices of the other two dread lords whose spirits he subdued. They agree to help in in the fight, weaving spells in the back of his mind so he is free to divert his attention to the attack. The battle rages, with Timmeron wielding terrifying variations of time magic, shrinking, invisibility, and explosive power. Is opponent matches his power, though not his creativity, casting draining spells and bolts of dark magic. For their part, the group has a hard time keeping up with their foe. The Archbishop tries to “ressurect” their lich, causing it great pain but being interrupted before completion. Travize tosses some brandy on the dread lord, causing its essence to be drawn into his flask. This, too, is interrupted as the lich fights back, blasting the party about the field with torrents of power and necromancy that leave them withering away. Quickly the healers try to fight the maledictions while the rest of the arty struggles to hurt the thing. The two battles merge when Timmeron's opponent blasts a hole in the wall, joining its brother and combining their powers to shield the two of them from most harm. The group battles on, eventually managing to separate the two again. Travize once more drains the lich with his flask, slowing it down enough for the group to hack away at its body with swords or blast at it with bolts (or bullets) of light. Finally, Grukk takes a mighty swing, cutting the thing in half. The lich explodes in a torrent of destructive power, unleashing its final effort in a focused wave of destruction, outright killing Travize, Caireann, Perlapae and Evie. Timmeron finishes up his fight by repeating his shrinking strategy exploding the skull of his opponent and taking advantage of the surprise to drain it of its power. The fight over, the Archbishop sets about resurrecting the dead party members, though exhaustion is beginning to take its toll on him. As he is finishing his spells, however, the Citadel makes its will know, wrapping the party in a bubble of power and hurtling them through the sky towards the Queen Voidspawn, telling Timmeron that it is time he made good on his promise to end their foe. The magic bubble strikes like a bullet, burying the party deep inside the Queen's body. So large is she that her innards are more like a landscape than a creature, and predators eager to defend their mother swarm from all directions. Acid splashes everywhere from any cut to the muscular walls of the beast as the party tries to fight its way through the tubes and other nameless organs that make up the Queen's vital processes. Ecosystems thrive within her, themselves contests of predator and prey. The Archivist points the way for them, telling them it can force one of the Queens “brains” to command its troops to leave Tirisea and return home. Timmeron wraps the party in another bubble of magic, catapulting them into, for lack of a better word, the Queen's bloodstream and through its massive body, eventually bursting through a wall and into a central nervous control center. The Archivist works its magic, and through the projected images of its power they see the Voidspawn begin to leave their cities and their towns, fleeing Tirisea. While there, they also have the Archivist force the Queen to free all of her Tirisean hostages, dropping them off in the Voidspawn ships at a place the party can ready. Though the group wants to leave, Timmeron decides that it is not yet time to go. He casts the group out of the queen, forcing them to save themselves from a brutal collision with the ground in the process, and finds his way to the very core of the Queen where her life energies are strongest. There he enacts a terrible ritual, shedding his madness and power throughout the Queen's body, necrotizing flesh and bone alike. With and shudder, the Queen plummets from her position in the sky. Timmeron dies in the ensuing explosion of ichor and acid. The party first finds the refugees, having the Archivist send them home. Once they see the queen fall from the sky, they head over to see if Timmeron survived. Unable to find him or reach him telepathically, they search desperately for his remains. Perlapae finds them with her life senses, drawing them out of the carnage. Though the remains are in no way recognizable, the Archbishop is able to resurrect him with Kaneel's help. As his body and spirit are rejoined, the party sees him take on his old for as a gnome, now of flesh and blood. With joy and lighter hearts, they depart the Voidspawn world, returning home from that hellish place. Just before they go, Kaneel gives the Archbishop some advice on how to deal with Bartos which he promises to share with the group when the time is right. Unfortunately, while the party is able to welcome the return of Timmeron to his old self, they must say goodbye to Karhanza. She volunteered to stay behind to close forever the doorway between the worlds, sacrificing her very essence to ensure the door stayed shut forever, with no material from either world able to reopen the door. Tearfully they hugged and parted ways. Once again aboard the ship they call home, the group finds Sajaina and crew and the two groups trade stories. While they were gone, Sajaina and Albert convinced most of Tirisea to flee to an ancient human settlement with natural resources to spare. The Dwarves the Laputians and a tremendous number of refugees hiding in the Cathedral of Bartos were the only people not yet convinced, though intentionally left for last. Albert makes one more effort to convince the party to abandon Tirisea rather than fight Bartos, but as they have bound themselves to this task, none but Sajaina have much of a choice. Getting ready for what they hope will be their final venture into such danger, the group summons the Night Maiden to ask her how she would approach the situation. She grants the Archbishop a spell he can use to send the party to the realm where Bartos dwells, which they must access through the Cathedral. She also gives them orbs of power she says can be formed into weapons and armor of use against Bartos once they arrive in that place. They ask her of the Archivist, and she replies that he may have a use against Bartos, though he may also be an inconvenience and they should be ready to deal with him if he becomes so. Surprisingly, the Night Maiden also addresses Sajaina, taking note of her new faith and attempt to follow the principles of Bartos. She suggests that Sajaina go to face Bartos anyway, as he might hesitate to use certain of his powers on a “devoted follower,” suggesting that she may find some way to help while she is there. Once more into the breach, the parties prepares to venture. They make their last preparations, taking a night to ready themselves in body and mind to kill a god.